Making Final Cut More Pro by Oliver Peters

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Excellent, and very helpful ! Thank you !

Thank you Oliver. Nice to learn every day something new.

Thanks for the tips Oliver!

Roles based mixing is really a bad workaround. I could never and will never get behind such a sorry excuse for a workaround. Overwhelmingly picture lock does not exist in more of today's work, so you can't wait until that point to do the audio work. A lot of good points here, but it's all workarounds. I love using FCPX, but it is lacking very sorely, and for way too long, in several key areas. But hey, it's perfect for YouTubers (which I'm told is its primary market focus).

Didn't you want to jump ship last October Ben? Totally understand your standpoint but to say FCP is only for Youtuber's and it shows in the software flys in the face of all professionals using it daily.

I can assure you I do not need any 'workarounds' to do my best work using FCP for the last 10 years

It's not that widely used. And some of us struggle with the workarounds. But glad it works for you. I'm slowly transitioning, too much work to do it overnight.

We’re I to have two FCP wishes they would be for an audio mixer and the ability to import selected portions of a clip rather than the entire clip. I do documentary work with long interviews that might only need 45 seconds of a two hour interview. But still I have to bloat the library with the whole thing, even if I leave the source material in its original location.

I'm glad these tips were helpful. I certainly don't disagree with the criticisms of FCP, but that wasn't the point of the article. It's about working with what you have today. Nevertheless, you shouldn't lose sight of the fact that any software can be improved.

Carsten Orlt wrote:

Didn't you want to jump ship last October Ben? Totally understand your standpoint but to say FCP is only for Youtuber's and it shows in the software flys in the face of all professionals using it daily.

I can assure you I do not need any 'workarounds' to do my best work using FCP for the last 10 years

JoeEditor wrote:

It's not that widely used. And some of us struggle with the workarounds. But glad it works for you. I'm slowly transitioning, too much work to do it overnight.

I remember when I was commenting about FCPX technical issues Ben would always prays FCPX how better it was then other NLEs! lol

Funny...

Audio is still handled as it should in my craft. It is done by the Audio Guys what ever they use.
I agree Audio Editing for YouTube video could be tricky since they might not have access to "Pro" Pipeline.
lol

Thank you Oliver. Some great ideas that I have not used before.

Thank you Oliver.
Excellent and helpful article

It is a very helpful article, but I've had enough of the cool-aid, trying to justify workarounds are acceptable after all these years. FCP really should be further along than it is. I very firmly believe that.

As for switching in October, I did. The TV station I was VP of production for, I began the switch to Resolve in October. I suddenly found I was leaving the station and my replacement switched it all over to Premier Pro overnight. As he and all the new editors I'd hired (who I had to train in FCP and Resolve) were already very experienced PPro users (and TV editors).

In my independent work I have need to switch more slowly.

I love working in FCP, great media management, magnetic timeline is usually really fast, but after all these years, the fact is that it still lacks very basic tools all other NLEs have that I need. I don't want to leave it, but I'm tired of wasting time with workarounds. I'll be using it for awhile before I'm totally off, but in the meantime, learning Resolve and really liking it.

I can love the NLE, and be super disappointed (and honest about) Apple's lack of development with it at the same time, guys.

If FCP works for you, great, very happy. But there are those of us who expected more of Apple based on their track record, and are disappointed. I don't see how that makes me a hypocrite or a bad person in any way.  And yet some here can't accept FCP's shortcomings as actual shortcomings, and that there are folks it doesn't work optimally for.  Oh well, not my problem.

Hey Ben, I was only ‘poking the bear’ with the October comment 😉 I have no problem with you deciding that FCP isn’t for you anymore. What I do object too is to use one’s own opinion to generalise for other people whether it is useful and if it is that they can’t be ‘professional’.
I also don’t have a problem with Oliver listing a few Workflows that he finds handy but to title the article in a way to make it sound that because FCP might be lacking them it’s not ‘Pro’ enough I find highly misleading. I as a pro actually don’t miss them and find his Workflows actually too complicated for my own work.
So we should really end this discussion about some function is essential for being able to call yourself professional or the software you use professional. Use what works for you, make suggestions what you think would be cool and if you have the feeling another software works better for you use that 🌈

Hi Oliver, just a quick question regarding the "flatten Multicam" workaround: does it preserve all resizes/transforms and applied effects?

“What I do object too is to use one’s own opinion to generalise for other people whether it is useful and if it is that they can’t be ‘professional’.“

Neither of which I did.

@sampl_e  "does it preserve all resizes/transforms and applied effects?"

I don't know, because I haven't tested that. Sorry.

@Carsten " but to title the article in a way to make it sound that because FCP might be lacking them it’s not ‘Pro’ enough I find highly misleading"

Haha! Welcome to the internet Admittedly it's a bit "click-bait-y" but my intent was more a play on words rather than anything else.

Months ago, I was inspired by a tutorial based on color coded video/audio roles and I tried it. I found the magic in working with video and audio roles. Improved my workflow speed significantly. It was nice being able to quickly identify by color what sound or music or speaker I need to tweak without skimming.

O man, and the paper edit.
Yeah! I didn’t need a feature, just a spreadsheet and transcribing software.

Thank you for sharing your experience and tips! I love FCP. It’s simple when I need it to be, and scales in sophistication as my projects evolve. I tried the other NLEs. I’m okay where I am. The app works great, lets me tell my story, much faster than the Avid/Premiere users that I worked amongst. Also, I never had my projects held hostage because my app couldn’t phone home and say my license it up to date if I couldn’t connect online, or the bill wasn't paid (gov’t finance personnel sometimes dropped the ball) I wasn’t out of commission. Bitter sweet of it was I was constantly sought out for projects.

When I transferred from editing in FCP 7 and in After Effects, I had to abandon the expectation that FCP worked like the other NLEs. I literally took a year off from using it. When I came back to it, I let it teach me how it works. I learned that easy is okay. Having fun editing is okay. “Cool video, could you change the music”…. Doesn’t hurt like it used to using other tools.

Kudos! I’ve followed the site for years. Never let me down. Keep crushing it, fam!